I wiped the sleep from my eyes, my dreams from last night consisting of a big, dark man. Even though I couldn’t see his face, I knew he was more dangerous than anything I could have come up against. He’d had ropes around me, laughing in this deep, sick, and twisted way that had made my humanity run and bury itself deep inside of me.

I’d slept for shit because of it. The dreams coupled with what I’d witnessed last night had been enough to keep me up, a warm glass of tea in my hand…the only thing stable enough to tie me to reality in that moment.

“Darryl’s got your check in back,” Rita, the assistant manager of this shitty coffee shop, said as she passed me.

“Thanks,” I mumbled. I had bills stacked against each other back in my shitty apartment, and although I worked overtime, I still wasn’t making it, was still struggling just to survive.

The story of my life.

I finished tying on my apron and walked over to Darryl’s office. My pervert of a boss was hunched over his desk, his cell pressed up to his ear as he barked into the receiver.

“I don’t care what he said. I asked him to be here an hour ago.” A moment of silence passed before he spoke again. “Listen, if he doesn’t show up, then I’ll give his position to someone else.” He disconnected the call and tossed the phone. I stood there for a second before clearing my throat. Darryl turned and looked at me.

Okay, he’s not in a pervert mood, not when he’s mean mugging me like that.

I’d take his anger over him slipping in lewd comments any day.

“Rita said my check was here?”

He started pushing papers aside until he got to the stack of envelopes. After flipping through them and finally finding mine, he handed it over without looking at me.

“Can you come in tomorrow an hour early?” he said, still not looking at me. He was such a shitty fucking boss.

“Yeah.” I needed the extra money, needed another job really. As it was, working at the coffee shop wasn’t cutting it. My electric was going to get cut off any day, and I was barely scraping by enough to pay my rent.

Cutting out the bar scene is going to have to be a priority.

I hated myself on some level for going out at all, for spending what little money I had. But if I didn’t get out, I’d kill myself. Maybe not literally, but I’d be stuck in that shitty apartment, no heat or electricity, staring at the wall. I’d be waiting for the world to swallow me up, because that would have been the only thing I had going for me.

“Actually, I was wondering if you had any overtime?”

He looked at me then and shook his head. Man, he had a bug up his ass big-time today, but I’d take it over his wandering eyes and his crude comments.

“Sorry, I’m strapped for hours. What you are scheduled is all you’re getting.” And that was it. He waved at me to leave, and I forced myself not to make an under the breath comment.

Asshole.

I got to work because thinking about my problems, about the fact I’d have to find another job, wasn’t what I wanted to dwell on. I had no one to ask for help, no one that really gave a damn about me. I was on my own in every possible way.

Twenty-two years old and a shell of a woman, an empty vessel that has nothing good going for her.

I shouldn’t have had to feel alive by clubbing and getting drunk. I should have had some light and happiness in my world. But then I knew that wasn’t how reality worked.

I sat on the curb at the back of the coffee shop. I had three more hours before my shift was over with, before I’d go back to the crushing realization of where I actually was in this world. It was times like this where the stress was almost too much to handle, where it tightened its hold on my lungs, squeezing me, trying to make me go blue and wither away into nothing, that I wished I had a cigarette. They were vile things, but smoking would have given me a small out, a tiny thing to focus on as the world went upside down around me.

The sound of the door opening had me glancing back. Marshall came through, a white trash bag in his hand, his ball cap crooked. He looked just as worn-out on the outside as I felt on the inside.

“Hey,” he said, his smile genuine.

“Hey.” I focused on the back of the building in front of me. It was an antique shop. Maybe they were hiring? I felt someone close by, watching me, and looked over to see Marshall staring at me. “What’s up?”

“I heard you talking to Darryl about needing extra hours.”

I nodded, not sure where this was going. Marshall was lower on the totem pole than I was, and he barely worked as it was.

He looked around as if he was afraid, as if he didn’t want anyone overhearing. Then he came closer, the smell of coffee beans coming from him in the same strength I assumed it came from me.

“You’re really hard up for money?” He was sitting beside me on the curb now, and I could see how his eyes were a little bloodshot, his pupils a little dilated. He seemed jumpy, but by the way he acted I could assume he was just nervous.

Or juiced up on something.

“I mean, I guess,” I said, my eyebrows pulled down, my confusion strong.

He was silent for long seconds, fidgeting with his apron, looking nervous as hell. “I know a guy who can help.”

“That doesn’t sound ominous at all.”

He kept looking around, and I felt the hairs on my arms stand on end. “I think I’ll pass on whatever it is you’re offering.”

“Sorry,” he said and exhaled. “But I do know someone who can help. He helps a lot of people.”

“Yeah, out of the kindness of his heart I assume.”

Marshall shrugged. “Here.” He reached in his apron and grabbed a pen and piece of paper. He wrote down an address, then handed it to me.

I glanced down at it, not sure where this part of the city was. “Thanks?” I said, because this seemed pretty shifty.

“But seriously, he can help.” Marshall stood and headed back inside. I should have tossed the address, because no way in hell this sounded legit or even safe. But for some reason I put it in my apron and stood.

What I knew for sure was nothing was free.